Trick or Treat Fic!
Trick or Treat authors have been revealed! So, as usual, I am now posting mine here as well. I wrote two fics for this: my regular assignment and an extra treat (or, at the case may be, trick). So, first the actual assignment. And, look, it features Amy again! I didn't set out to write a bunch of Amy and/or River lately, it just sort of happened somehow.
Interestingly, my recipient this time was the same person I wrote for for Space Swap earlier this year. Which made me a little bit nervous. Had I not already written the best story I could write for them? And, gosh, I'd better hope they actually liked that one and weren't just being nice about it, right? (I do think they actually liked it though, really.)
Anyway, here's what I came up with:
Title: The House of Ghosts
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Amy Pond, Eleventh Doctor
Summary: "Ghosts of yourself," he says. "Of possible pasts and potential futures. Of alternate nows. Of other selves."
Rating/Warnings: G. Technically it might contain some major character death, but it's not real character death. Just fleeting glimpses of possibilities, I swear.
Length: ~2100 words
Author's Notes: Written for kara_katrine, for Trick or Treat 2020.
The House of Ghosts
"All right," says Amy, looking around. "Now, this is what I call a proper planet! Very Star Wars."
"No wars here," says the Doctor. "This place is quite peaceful, generally speaking."
"Not what I meant," says Amy, looking around at the wide variety of aliens circulating among the colorful tents. "Wait, have you really not seen Star Wars?" But she never finds out whether he has or not, as his reply is drowned out by a sudden burst of music from somewhere nearby. It's a strange, alien tune, played on unidentifiable instruments and full of odd changes of tempo, but Amy thinks she could get into it.
They walk a little way, until the music is far enough behind them that they can hear each other again. "Is this some kind of festival or something, or does it usually look like this?" she asks, taking in the colorful tents, the vendors selling neon-colored food in greasy napkins or on wiggly sticks, and the decorations hanging from poles and wires and ropes.
The decorations are a a bit freaky, actually. A lot of them are hard to make sense of, but quite a few seem to feature pictures of skulls in a number of different alien shapes. And she really can't decide whether the cheerful, bright-colored streamers and flowers surrounding most them are a reassuring sign or a worrying one.
"It's the celebration of Grchkolg," says the Doctor.
"Do you have something stuck in your throat?"
"No. That's what it's called. Grchkolg. The celebration of the time, once per local year, when the barriers of reality grow weak here. It's an interesting anomaly, actually, probably caused by some sort of rift in..."
Amy hasn't spent a great deal of time with the Doctor yet, but she already knows that when he gets going on a technobabble explanation, it can be hard to make him stop if you don't get a word in quickly. So she says, "What, like Halloween?" She puts on a bit of a spooky voice. "When the walls between the worlds grow thin and the dead walk the earth? Like that?"
"Well," says the Doctor. "A bit like that. The dead don't walk anywhere, exactly, although there are places where you might see them. And there aren't any costumes."
Amy stops. In front of them now is an actual building, looking out of place among the tents. Embedded in its charcoal gray face are thousands of tiny mirror shards. Broken, glinting images of the the two of them and the world at large shatter off in all directions. It hurts her eyes to look at it, and not just because this planet's sun seems to be a tiny bit brighter than the one she's used to. There's something about it. Something that tugs at her mind.
Above the heavy curtains that serve as doors, a sign reads, "The House of Ghosts."
She reads it out loud. "Are ghosts actually real?" she asks the Doctor. If anyone knows, she figures he would.
"No," he says, his tone gently scoffing. Then, "Well, yes." He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Well, no. But it is possible for the dead to leave behind psychic residue capable of interacting in various ways with the physical world."
"That sounds pretty much like the exact definition of a ghost," says Amy.
"In any case," says the Doctor, "that isn't the sort of ghost to be found in there."
"All right," says Amy, gamely. "What sort of ghosts do you find in there?"
She smiles at the Doctor, but he doesn't smile back. His eyes seem faraway, and as old as she's ever seen them. "Ghosts of yourself," he says. "Of possible pasts and potential futures. Of alternate nows. Of other selves."
Amy blinks. "Wow. Cool. You want to go and see?"
"I have seen it," he says. He looks at her, and his eyes are in focus now, but they seem strangely sad. If she were going to be cheesy, she might say "haunted," but she refuses to give in to the impulse. "I really don't need to experience it again."
She considers his face. Considers the building. The reflections it's casting off now seem different than they did a moment ago, but that might just be a trick of the light.
Probably going in there is a terrible idea. But she really, really wants to see what it's about. She didn't go flying off into space with a crazy man in a magic box not to poke around in weird alien ghost houses.
"Mind if I have a look?"
For a moment, he doesn't answer. Then, "I didn't intend to come here, you know. The TARDIS, she has a mind of her own sometimes."
Which is also not an answer. "I'm going in," she says.
He looks as if he's about to say something, about to reach out a hand to stop her, and if he does, maybe she'd listen. She does trust him. She has to. But instead he nods. Like he's already accepted that this is something she needs to do. Something that's going to happen, with or without him.
Which is a little weird, to be honest.
"Right," she says. She lifts the curtain and enters.
It's dark inside, and quiet. Completely, impossibly quiet, the sounds of the festival outside cut off as if they never existed. Quiet enough that she imagines she can hear her own heart beating, and nothing else, anywhere.
There ought to be sunlight leaking in through the curtain. There isn't, and she finds herself irrationally certain that if she lifted it, she would find that on the other side reality has just... stopped. Ceased to exist.
"Creepy," she says, trying to make it sound appreciative, rather than genuinely frightened. She thinks she succeeds. Mostly.
She half expects something in the darkness to answer her, but nothing does.
She stands there in the quiet, in the dark, until it starts to feel unbearable. Until impatience or a desire to escape makes her consider lifting the curtain anyway, no matter what might or might not be on the other side.
She takes a step towards it, or what she thinks is towards it, if she hasn't got turned around.
And she stops.
They're here. The ghosts.
They aren't out there in the dark, though. They're here, inside her. She is seeing them with something other than her eyes, hearing with an internal sense that has nothing to do with her ears.
And she can feel them. Can feel what they are. Who they are.
The Doctor was right. They're her.
...She's six years old, sitting on a suitcase. Her new friend reaches out and takes her by the hand. Smiling, he leads her away, and it's like the stories of children running away to travel in magical lands, of human children spirited off to live with elves or fairies. Even young as she is, she knows, she understands. Those kids, they never come back the same, and she's eager, she wants to see what's out there, wants to find out what she'll become...
...She's a teenager, and she and Rory and Mels are laughing about something, making stupid jokes and playfully shoving each other around and she almost remembers this, or a moment like it, but, wait, it wasn't like that at all, was it? The others don't belong in her memory. They're gone. No, not gone. They were never there. Who is Rory? Who is Mels? It's only her. It's only ever been her. How ridiculous to imagine anyone else there. The only real friend she's ever had is the one she's almost given up waiting for...
...She is dying. Dying at the hands of a robot, in the claws of a stone angel with sharp, sharp teeth, dying from laser blasts and spaceship crashes, dying by accident, dying by execution. A dozen different versions of the Doctor reach out for her, cry out "no!", and fail to help...
...She's getting married, and it's beautiful, it's almost perfect. She only wishes her parents were here, that they'd lived to see her grow up...
...She smiles at her dad as he raises his glass to toast her happiness. Rory, her old friend and new husband, squeezes her hand, and they did it, they made this moment happen. Everything is safe, even the Doctor, because she remembers, because deep inside she's always known how things were meant to be...
...She's holding a baby and the baby is taken from her, and she's screaming, screaming, screaming...
...She's holding a baby, holding a toddler, walking a little girl to her first day of school...
...She's walking a little boy to his first day of school, but everything around her -- the clothes, the cars, the shops -- is strangely old-fashioned, as if she's become a mother before she was ever born...
...She's in a box, a dark, locked cube of nothingness, without time, without consciousness, and she will never get out will never wake, never...
...She is seven years old and there are no such things as stars, but in her mind she's seen them, she knows they're there, she believes...
...She is middle-aged and bitter. She doesn't want to die, she wants to fight. She's spent what seems like her whole life fighting, the swords as much a part of her as her arms or her eyes, and she wants to live, but she also wants never to have lived this life, alone...
...She is old and dying, she knows she is, she knows where her tombstone will be, and she has a few regrets, of course she does, but it still was amazing, all of it, and she doesn't mind, wouldn't take any of it back if she could...
...She is standing in space, in a bubble of air, and around her are the stars, and they're beautiful, they're the most beautiful things she's ever seen, and this isn't even the end of it, it's only the beginning...
...She's falling into a crack in the wall. But she is not falling. There is no crack. There is no wall. There is no her. There never was and never will be and no one has ever heard the name Amelia Pond...
...She's in a museum and the Doctor is saying something about good things and bad things. He's hugging her and she's crying, and it's sad, it's all so terribly sad, but it's good, too. She's happy that the man they brought here was able to see this future, that he was able to know...
...She fell asleep on the suitcase. He didn't come and he didn't come and he never will come, but he's here now, saying goodbye, whispering in her sleeping ear. He's a story, he says, and she is too. Make it a good one, he tells her. Make it a good one...
...She's standing on an alien planet, a real, live alien planet, outside a building that says "House of Ghosts," and her very real imaginary friend is looking at her with haunted eyes and telling her the ghosts are her, her futures and her pasts, her might-have-beens and her maybes, and she can tell from his face that it might be horrible, that she might see things she doesn't want to see, but she steps inside anyway, because she is Amy Pond, and this is who she is, always: the women who reaches out towards the improbable and the impossible, who refuses to look away from it or pretend it's not there, no matter what anyone says. She enters. It's dark and it's quiet and she can hear the beating of her heart...
Amy blinks.
In front of her, alien sunlight shines softly through the folds of a dark curtain. Beyond it, she can hear the sounds of people. Of life. Of time happening the way it should.
She raises the curtain. She steps out.
The Doctor looks at her. His eyes are kind, and understanding. "So," he says, gently. "Would you like me to take you home now?"
She closes her eyes. The memories are fading, but she can still feel them. Death, and dark, and non-existence. Hope, and love, and a pile of good things. Stories and stars.
She opens her eyes again. "No," she says. And something shines in his eyes now, some shimmer of wary, hopeful surprise. "Hell, no," she clarifies.
He smiles. Funny how, when his eyes twinkle like that, you can suddenly realize just how young his face is. "You're sure?" he says. "You haven't... changed your mind for any reason?"
She links her arm through his. He stiffens, then softens. Her dear old raggedy Doctor. "Positive," she says. And she is. "C'mon, Doctor. Let's go wherever we're going next."
They turn and walk back towards the TARDIS, and into their uncertain future.
This entry was originally posted at https://astrogirl.dreamwidth.org/991426.html. Comment here or there, whichever you like.
Interestingly, my recipient this time was the same person I wrote for for Space Swap earlier this year. Which made me a little bit nervous. Had I not already written the best story I could write for them? And, gosh, I'd better hope they actually liked that one and weren't just being nice about it, right? (I do think they actually liked it though, really.)
Anyway, here's what I came up with:
Title: The House of Ghosts
Fandom: Doctor Who
Characters/Pairings: Amy Pond, Eleventh Doctor
Summary: "Ghosts of yourself," he says. "Of possible pasts and potential futures. Of alternate nows. Of other selves."
Rating/Warnings: G. Technically it might contain some major character death, but it's not real character death. Just fleeting glimpses of possibilities, I swear.
Length: ~2100 words
Author's Notes: Written for kara_katrine, for Trick or Treat 2020.
The House of Ghosts
"All right," says Amy, looking around. "Now, this is what I call a proper planet! Very Star Wars."
"No wars here," says the Doctor. "This place is quite peaceful, generally speaking."
"Not what I meant," says Amy, looking around at the wide variety of aliens circulating among the colorful tents. "Wait, have you really not seen Star Wars?" But she never finds out whether he has or not, as his reply is drowned out by a sudden burst of music from somewhere nearby. It's a strange, alien tune, played on unidentifiable instruments and full of odd changes of tempo, but Amy thinks she could get into it.
They walk a little way, until the music is far enough behind them that they can hear each other again. "Is this some kind of festival or something, or does it usually look like this?" she asks, taking in the colorful tents, the vendors selling neon-colored food in greasy napkins or on wiggly sticks, and the decorations hanging from poles and wires and ropes.
The decorations are a a bit freaky, actually. A lot of them are hard to make sense of, but quite a few seem to feature pictures of skulls in a number of different alien shapes. And she really can't decide whether the cheerful, bright-colored streamers and flowers surrounding most them are a reassuring sign or a worrying one.
"It's the celebration of Grchkolg," says the Doctor.
"Do you have something stuck in your throat?"
"No. That's what it's called. Grchkolg. The celebration of the time, once per local year, when the barriers of reality grow weak here. It's an interesting anomaly, actually, probably caused by some sort of rift in..."
Amy hasn't spent a great deal of time with the Doctor yet, but she already knows that when he gets going on a technobabble explanation, it can be hard to make him stop if you don't get a word in quickly. So she says, "What, like Halloween?" She puts on a bit of a spooky voice. "When the walls between the worlds grow thin and the dead walk the earth? Like that?"
"Well," says the Doctor. "A bit like that. The dead don't walk anywhere, exactly, although there are places where you might see them. And there aren't any costumes."
Amy stops. In front of them now is an actual building, looking out of place among the tents. Embedded in its charcoal gray face are thousands of tiny mirror shards. Broken, glinting images of the the two of them and the world at large shatter off in all directions. It hurts her eyes to look at it, and not just because this planet's sun seems to be a tiny bit brighter than the one she's used to. There's something about it. Something that tugs at her mind.
Above the heavy curtains that serve as doors, a sign reads, "The House of Ghosts."
She reads it out loud. "Are ghosts actually real?" she asks the Doctor. If anyone knows, she figures he would.
"No," he says, his tone gently scoffing. Then, "Well, yes." He pauses, looking thoughtful. "Well, no. But it is possible for the dead to leave behind psychic residue capable of interacting in various ways with the physical world."
"That sounds pretty much like the exact definition of a ghost," says Amy.
"In any case," says the Doctor, "that isn't the sort of ghost to be found in there."
"All right," says Amy, gamely. "What sort of ghosts do you find in there?"
She smiles at the Doctor, but he doesn't smile back. His eyes seem faraway, and as old as she's ever seen them. "Ghosts of yourself," he says. "Of possible pasts and potential futures. Of alternate nows. Of other selves."
Amy blinks. "Wow. Cool. You want to go and see?"
"I have seen it," he says. He looks at her, and his eyes are in focus now, but they seem strangely sad. If she were going to be cheesy, she might say "haunted," but she refuses to give in to the impulse. "I really don't need to experience it again."
She considers his face. Considers the building. The reflections it's casting off now seem different than they did a moment ago, but that might just be a trick of the light.
Probably going in there is a terrible idea. But she really, really wants to see what it's about. She didn't go flying off into space with a crazy man in a magic box not to poke around in weird alien ghost houses.
"Mind if I have a look?"
For a moment, he doesn't answer. Then, "I didn't intend to come here, you know. The TARDIS, she has a mind of her own sometimes."
Which is also not an answer. "I'm going in," she says.
He looks as if he's about to say something, about to reach out a hand to stop her, and if he does, maybe she'd listen. She does trust him. She has to. But instead he nods. Like he's already accepted that this is something she needs to do. Something that's going to happen, with or without him.
Which is a little weird, to be honest.
"Right," she says. She lifts the curtain and enters.
It's dark inside, and quiet. Completely, impossibly quiet, the sounds of the festival outside cut off as if they never existed. Quiet enough that she imagines she can hear her own heart beating, and nothing else, anywhere.
There ought to be sunlight leaking in through the curtain. There isn't, and she finds herself irrationally certain that if she lifted it, she would find that on the other side reality has just... stopped. Ceased to exist.
"Creepy," she says, trying to make it sound appreciative, rather than genuinely frightened. She thinks she succeeds. Mostly.
She half expects something in the darkness to answer her, but nothing does.
She stands there in the quiet, in the dark, until it starts to feel unbearable. Until impatience or a desire to escape makes her consider lifting the curtain anyway, no matter what might or might not be on the other side.
She takes a step towards it, or what she thinks is towards it, if she hasn't got turned around.
And she stops.
They're here. The ghosts.
They aren't out there in the dark, though. They're here, inside her. She is seeing them with something other than her eyes, hearing with an internal sense that has nothing to do with her ears.
And she can feel them. Can feel what they are. Who they are.
The Doctor was right. They're her.
...She's six years old, sitting on a suitcase. Her new friend reaches out and takes her by the hand. Smiling, he leads her away, and it's like the stories of children running away to travel in magical lands, of human children spirited off to live with elves or fairies. Even young as she is, she knows, she understands. Those kids, they never come back the same, and she's eager, she wants to see what's out there, wants to find out what she'll become...
...She's a teenager, and she and Rory and Mels are laughing about something, making stupid jokes and playfully shoving each other around and she almost remembers this, or a moment like it, but, wait, it wasn't like that at all, was it? The others don't belong in her memory. They're gone. No, not gone. They were never there. Who is Rory? Who is Mels? It's only her. It's only ever been her. How ridiculous to imagine anyone else there. The only real friend she's ever had is the one she's almost given up waiting for...
...She is dying. Dying at the hands of a robot, in the claws of a stone angel with sharp, sharp teeth, dying from laser blasts and spaceship crashes, dying by accident, dying by execution. A dozen different versions of the Doctor reach out for her, cry out "no!", and fail to help...
...She's getting married, and it's beautiful, it's almost perfect. She only wishes her parents were here, that they'd lived to see her grow up...
...She smiles at her dad as he raises his glass to toast her happiness. Rory, her old friend and new husband, squeezes her hand, and they did it, they made this moment happen. Everything is safe, even the Doctor, because she remembers, because deep inside she's always known how things were meant to be...
...She's holding a baby and the baby is taken from her, and she's screaming, screaming, screaming...
...She's holding a baby, holding a toddler, walking a little girl to her first day of school...
...She's walking a little boy to his first day of school, but everything around her -- the clothes, the cars, the shops -- is strangely old-fashioned, as if she's become a mother before she was ever born...
...She's in a box, a dark, locked cube of nothingness, without time, without consciousness, and she will never get out will never wake, never...
...She is seven years old and there are no such things as stars, but in her mind she's seen them, she knows they're there, she believes...
...She is middle-aged and bitter. She doesn't want to die, she wants to fight. She's spent what seems like her whole life fighting, the swords as much a part of her as her arms or her eyes, and she wants to live, but she also wants never to have lived this life, alone...
...She is old and dying, she knows she is, she knows where her tombstone will be, and she has a few regrets, of course she does, but it still was amazing, all of it, and she doesn't mind, wouldn't take any of it back if she could...
...She is standing in space, in a bubble of air, and around her are the stars, and they're beautiful, they're the most beautiful things she's ever seen, and this isn't even the end of it, it's only the beginning...
...She's falling into a crack in the wall. But she is not falling. There is no crack. There is no wall. There is no her. There never was and never will be and no one has ever heard the name Amelia Pond...
...She's in a museum and the Doctor is saying something about good things and bad things. He's hugging her and she's crying, and it's sad, it's all so terribly sad, but it's good, too. She's happy that the man they brought here was able to see this future, that he was able to know...
...She fell asleep on the suitcase. He didn't come and he didn't come and he never will come, but he's here now, saying goodbye, whispering in her sleeping ear. He's a story, he says, and she is too. Make it a good one, he tells her. Make it a good one...
...She's standing on an alien planet, a real, live alien planet, outside a building that says "House of Ghosts," and her very real imaginary friend is looking at her with haunted eyes and telling her the ghosts are her, her futures and her pasts, her might-have-beens and her maybes, and she can tell from his face that it might be horrible, that she might see things she doesn't want to see, but she steps inside anyway, because she is Amy Pond, and this is who she is, always: the women who reaches out towards the improbable and the impossible, who refuses to look away from it or pretend it's not there, no matter what anyone says. She enters. It's dark and it's quiet and she can hear the beating of her heart...
Amy blinks.
In front of her, alien sunlight shines softly through the folds of a dark curtain. Beyond it, she can hear the sounds of people. Of life. Of time happening the way it should.
She raises the curtain. She steps out.
The Doctor looks at her. His eyes are kind, and understanding. "So," he says, gently. "Would you like me to take you home now?"
She closes her eyes. The memories are fading, but she can still feel them. Death, and dark, and non-existence. Hope, and love, and a pile of good things. Stories and stars.
She opens her eyes again. "No," she says. And something shines in his eyes now, some shimmer of wary, hopeful surprise. "Hell, no," she clarifies.
He smiles. Funny how, when his eyes twinkle like that, you can suddenly realize just how young his face is. "You're sure?" he says. "You haven't... changed your mind for any reason?"
She links her arm through his. He stiffens, then softens. Her dear old raggedy Doctor. "Positive," she says. And she is. "C'mon, Doctor. Let's go wherever we're going next."
They turn and walk back towards the TARDIS, and into their uncertain future.
This entry was originally posted at https://astrogirl.dreamwidth.org/991426.html. Comment here or there, whichever you like.